


refrain for the weary (home is wherever i’m with you)

by melonpaan



Series: reprise for the soul [1]
Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997), Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)
Genre: AU, Adventure, F/M, Heavily inspired by Remake but no real spoilers (except the big one), Just give these kids their happy ending pls, Romance, or is it???
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-24
Updated: 2020-05-24
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:28:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24298876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melonpaan/pseuds/melonpaan
Summary: On the other side of destiny’s crossroads, Zack Fair wakes.And decides maybe he’s had enough of being the hero.(Or: Zack and Aerith live andlive.)
Relationships: Aerith Gainsborough/Zack Fair, Zack Fair/Aerith Gainsborough
Series: reprise for the soul [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1801021
Comments: 39
Kudos: 99





	refrain for the weary (home is wherever i’m with you)

**Author's Note:**

>   
>  _Midgar, Kalm, and Gongaga  
>  I do love my ma and pa  
> Not that way that I do love you...  
>  ___  
> 

On the other side of destiny’s crossroads, Zack Fair wakes.

Wakes to a feather-light touch against his cheek, his brow, his lips. Slowly, painfully, opens his eyes to an endless blue and white expanse. It’s raining, but it’s not. Rain doesn’t quite sparkle like that, nor feel so warm to the touch, but somehow it’s snowing stars even as the sun shines overhead and Zack can’t make heads or tails of it. But he’s alive, and the air tastes so sweet filling his lungs.

There’s a ringing in his ears as he tries to piece together the last five minutes of his life, a blur of gunfire and metal and blood and then—his heart lurches—an explosion over Midgar. He stumbles forward on wayward feet and quickly casts his eyes over the cliff’s edge. The city of steel stands untouched, unmoved, the great big pizza in the sky, and Zack breathes a little easier at that. Sets his sword onto his back and, after one last look at Midgar, picks his way through the fallen bodies. He says a silent Gongagan prayer for each former colleague, each former friend, and wipes away unshed tears only for his gloves to come away stained red.

Cloud looks almost peaceful, eyes fluttering in his mako-induced haze, and it would be so nice to settle next to him and sleep, so easy to dream away broken bones and aching muscles and his unrelenting headache. But the winds shift as the skies grow overcast above and he knows that rain, real rain, is coming.

_Boy, oh boy._

No rest for the weary.

He hoists Cloud over his shoulder and continues on.

He’ll sleep when he gets home.

+++

He pulls them into Midgar, through rusted city gates and down the twisting, filthy alleyways of the slums until they spill out into a dimly-lit train station. The soles of his boots are slick with rain and he stumbles more than once, barely managing to keep them both upright. He shakes his head to clear it, and the pounding magnifies, but still he places one foot in front of the other. Imagine coming all this way only to die in the slums. He won’t let that happen, not to Cloud and not—

_Not again._

He startles and his legs decide to give out from under him, so he shifts his body and tucks Cloud’s face into his chest, taking the brunt of the fall with a strained grunt.

Okay, maybe some rest for the weary.

He rolls Cloud into a sitting position against the railing of the station and sets his sword in the space between them, before sitting with his head tucked between his knees. _Breathe_ , he wills himself, so he does and stale Midgar air settles in his lungs like lead. They’ll rest for just a bit, just long enough to get his head straight, and then they’ll find the church, and then…

“Z-Zack?”

He sees the basket first, falling onto the streets as if in slow motion, flowers scattering onto muddy concrete, crushed underfoot as people pass them by. He reaches for one and the pressure in his head _explodes_ , shuts his eyes and digs his palms into them deeper and _deeper_ —

A feather-like touch against his face, warmth like falling stars against his cheeks…

His breathing steadies long enough to lift his face from his hands. Slowly, painfully, opens his eyes. “An…angel?”

“Oh, god, Zack, it is you.”

Her face is a blur of porcelain and rose, but he’d know those eyes anywhere, green like Gongagan fields in the summer—green like home—green spilling over with unbecoming tears.

“Don’t…cry…” he rasps with some effort, which wrings a choked sob out of her.

“Speak for yourself.”

He blinks and only then feels wetness pooling at the corners of his eyes, rolling slowly down his chin. “My head…”

“Give me a second.” Her fingers climb toward his temples and into his hair, and a rush of warm wind soothes the roar into a dull hum. “It’s the best I can do for now.”

She removes her hands and takes a step back to dust them off on the front of her dress and the loss feels so immediate, so _visceral_ , that a whimper escapes his throat. She stills and his vision focuses enough to notice the ribbon in her hair, the bangles on her wrists, her dress…

“You’re…pink.” His eyes feel so heavy, but his heart suddenly feels so full.

“Later.” There’s a tiny smile tugging at her lips. “Let’s get you out of here first.”

“C-Cloud…”

“Cloud? O-oh! Okay. Okay, I’m going to need some help…” she trails off before her voice comes back in full worried force. “Zack— _Zack_. Hey, open your eyes for me, okay?”

He hadn’t even realized they were closed.

“I need you to stay awake, just for a little longer, okay? Just until I come back with some help. Can you do that for me?”

His tongue lays numb and thick in his mouth.

“Please,” she begs, hands firmly cupping his cheeks, training his eyes on hers. He nods because he thinks it will make her happy, and it seems to work. But then her hands are gone and so is the warmth and she’s turning her back and fading farther and farther away and he can’t do this, he can’t let her go— _not again_ —so he stumbles blindly on his feet and tries to follow.

+++

After what feels like an eternity of dreamless sleep, Zack Fair wakes.

_Wheezes_ back to life as the air slams into his lungs with too much force, leaving him gasping and desperately thrashing as mako leaks slowly out of the chamber and broken glass burns at every inch of raw skin—

“Zack!” There’s a clatter and his eyes narrow to slits, fists trembling and body shaking uncontrollably. Something falls from his forehead and lands with a damp splat on his lap and it captures his attention long enough to let down his guard. A hand at his shoulder—a needle digging into his skin again and _again_ , a throaty cackle that rings in his ears—and he sees white hot rage, raises his fists on instinct and nearly clobbers his—

His…?

“Zack?”

“Heya,” he blurts out, lowering his hands, burning up in shame.

“Heya.” The corners of her eyes soften, but there’s fear there too and he hates it. Still, she comes closer, seats herself on the edge of the bed, so close yet so far, and places a hand lightly but firmly over his chest, guiding him to lean back against the headboard. She keeps it there until his shoulders round and his muscles relax, and only then reaches over to grab the towel from his lap. She dips it into a basin on the bedside table, and wrings once, twice, water dripping down her wrists with a haunting grace. Zack doesn’t dare breathe, can’t do anything but remain transfixed by her movements, map every inch of her to memory.

She looks like she always does in his dreams, but her chin is a little sharper, eyes a little harder, sadder, lips petal pink and so, so soft. Her hair falls in a tangle of curls past her chest, and she’s wearing something sheer and yellow that crinkles and sighs with every breath. It’s a little too sheer. His eyes flicker back up to find amusement dancing in hers, all the hardness and sadness instantly replaced. He breathes a little easier at that. She folds the towel into thirds before placing it cool against his forehead, fingers dancing against his skin to flick his bangs into submission. He grabs her arm before she can move away, and examines the paper-thin skin of her wrist, traces his thumb along the pulsing veins into her palm, scrapes his nails against unfamiliar calluses.

“You’re real,” he says in wonder, bringing her hand higher to press a reverent kiss to her knuckles.

“ _You’re_ real.” she repeats, wriggling her fingers. He’d blush if that were a thing people could do on command when feeling embarrassed and so overcome with emotion. Instead he gently envelopes her hand with both of his, unable to let go just yet.

“How did you…” There are too many questions and too many words and far too much time lost, so he doesn’t even know where to begin.

“I got lucky. That train station is where broken people sometimes get found.”

He tries to piece together his last few memories—her eyes, the sun burning high in the sky, her voice, Midgar exploding, the ribbon, flowers… _train station_? He inhales sharply. “Cloud…”

She tries to pull her hand away but he holds on. “When I made it back—he wasn’t there. _You_ weren’t there. I told you to stay put and yet somehow two grown men— _SOLDIERs_ —had completely vanished without a trace and not a single person I asked remembered seeing either of you. I thought…” She shivers, casts her face away and rubs at her eyes with her other hand. “I thought I had seen a ghost.”

“Ae—”

“And then I saw your boot sticking out of an alleyway and—” She clears her throat and shakes her head. “I knew I had to bring you to safety first. B-but then I immediately went back and still no one could remember seeing a blond SOLDIER. I went back every day to ask around, but…”

“Every day…” He frowns thoughtfully. “What do you mean _every_ day? How long have I—”

“You’ve been asleep for three days.” Her voice fades to a tiny whisper. “Doctor Uzuki didn’t think you were going to make it.”

“ _Three da_ —” His sentence is interrupted by a churning, howling rumble from his stomach. “Ah…”

“Oh!” She rises quickly, moves to the dresser closest to the door to retrieve a tray laden with slices of crusty bread, a lidded bowl, and a wooden spoon. “It’s been sitting here for a few hours, but might still be warm.”

She sets the tray on his lap and lifts the lid and the scent of a hearty meat and vegetable stew overwhelms all his senses. He’s _ravenous_ , devours the bread and licks the bowl clean without ever touching the spoon. He sighs, satisfied, and she tuts, “So messy,” wipes at the corner of his mouth with a tinkling laugh. Her thumb catches his bottom lip and his tongue slips out, unbidden. She startles, retreats, busies herself with removing the tray and setting it aside, unable to meet his eyes once more.

He’d kick himself if he thought this was at all about his tongue, but he’s not that cocky. Dread trickles into the pit of his soul. “What else aren’t you telling me?”

“Your sword…” She still won’t look at him. “It wasn’t there when I returned for you, either.”

His sword— _Angeal’s_ sword.

His honor and his dreams.

Cloud…

He slams a fist into his open palm with a sudden, striking clarity. “Oh!”

“Oh?”

“I think—I think Cloud must be okay.” He nods, growing more certain by the second.

“Why?”

“Because he _took_ the sword. Not just anyone could carry that thing around, yanno. And if he keeps it with him, he’ll definitely, definitely be okay.” He glances over at her then, finally able to meet eyes. “Besides…you went back every day for a reason. Because you knew that he was still alive…right?”

She blinks widely, caught off guard, but eventually does give the tiniest of nods. “Still, are you really okay with parting just like that? It seemed like…it seemed like you went through a lot together.”

“That’s why I’m okay with it. Because if he took it, it means he has his own honor and dreams to protect.”

She frowns like she still doesn’t quite get it, but Zack’s always followed his heart, and it has never led him astray, not once after falling through the roof of a church in the slums. And right now his heart beats steady and strong and confident that Cloud is out there, somewhere, forging his own path.

“So…” Her voice wavers. “What will you do now?”

“I dunno.” He glances over to his—to _Aerith_ —and follows his heart. “Fill Midgar with flowers, fill our wallets with money?”

Aerith blinks widely, caught off guard again, only this time a hesitant smile blooms on her face. “Well, that’ll be a bit difficult since all your wagons have broken down.”

“What?! Even my steel baby?”

“Even steel baby. It’s been five years, you know.” She says it lightly, with only that tiniest waver in her voice again, and his heart aches.

_Five?_ Shit.

“I’m so so—”

She shakes her head firmly. “Later. All that can wait till later—till you’re better.”

He doesn’t want to wait, wants to take her in his arms and crush her against his chest forever, but everything is too fragile, too raw, and _five_ years and eighty-nine letters and twenty-three little wishes and a nearly broken promise stretch between them like an eternity.

Still, she found him.

Still, she’s _here_.

And he is too.

A start. “So maybe the first thing I’ll do is build you a new one?”

“No steel.”

“Booooring.”

She exhales sharply, wringing her hands together. “Is that okay?”

“Is what okay?”

“Being boring. Selling flowers. Living in the slums…aren’t you gonna miss it?”

“The Buster Sword?”

“ _Being the hero._ ”

Zack laughs and he can’t help it, he’s always been so impatient, stands and closes the distance to bring her fully into his arms, burying his face into her hair. “I think I’ve had enough of that for a lifetime.”

+++

But Zack doesn’t get to build a new flower wagon for another three days after awakening—doesn’t get to do much of anything with Aerith checking in on him by the hour, bringing food, medicine, and endless refills of a flowery herbal tea that smells like his memories of the church garden. She outright _scowls_ at him if he does anything other than stay in bed, because he needs to “rest and regain his strength.”

On the first morning she catches him trying to loosen his stiff muscles with some good old-fashioned practice squats and nearly takes off his head with a metal curtain rod lying in her cluttered hallway. She almost doesn’t let him _bathe_ , despite the fact that he reeks, and the only reason she agrees is because he unthinkingly tells her to join him if she’s so damn worried. She hands him a towel and slams the bathroom door in his face in response. So that tiny victory rang a little hollow.

When he very maturely _whines_ that he’s bored, Aerith looks so stricken that the complaint dies instantly on his lips. She leaves lunch next to his bed and nearly runs from the room before he can even call after her. When she returns hours later, she shushes the apology dribbling out of his throat and stacks several thick piles of old newspapers and magazines from who knows where or when onto the floor, before smiling oh-so-sweetly at him. “If you’re bored, you can read. In bed.”

So he does. And it’s fine. Actually, it’s quite relaxing and stimulating, especially in the morning with breakfast and a steaming cup of hot tea. He slowly fills in the gaps of five years of knowledge and it’s both heartening and not to know that the world continued turning while he remained in stasis, and everything yet somehow nothing has changed at all. People are still at war, and peace seems like the ultimate unattainable dream.

But maybe, he thinks, just maybe, if he can finish that flower wagon, _his_ dream—

In the middle of the second night he tries to sneak out to find some building materials and steps on a particularly squeaky floorboard—and straight into a conveniently placed metal bucket. Aerith barrels out of her room like a hurricane, with a somewhat unhinged smile on her obviously tired face, as she pushes him roughly back into the room and into bed.

On the third day, Aerith drops off his breakfast and announces that they’re out of tea and that she’ll be back within a few hours. She has her flower basket dangling off of one arm, and she’s dressed in a plain turquoise sundress. She always wears her hair wild and free at her house, but now her hair is done up in a familiar neat braid at the top of her head, tied up with a familiar pink ribbon. His heart twinges at the sight, aches after her when she leaves.

They still haven’t really talked, even though she keeps saying _later, later_. She hasn’t let him apologize once. Every time he tries, she smiles thinly and changes the subject, usually deciding he needs a refill of tea.

He’s not sure what it means that she hasn’t touched him at all since that first night he woke, either, but he doesn’t like it. Whips himself into a frenzy because it’s been _five_ years, and maybe when she says later, she means never, because she doesn’t need his excuses or barely unbroken promises anymore. Because maybe she’s already moved on, except she’s too kind to leave him to die on the streets of the slums so she’s pushing him to get better and get on with his life so she can _finally_ get on with hers.

He needs to build that flower wagon. Today.

So when he hears the distant thud of a door closing somewhere downstairs, and spies her pink ribbon bobbing away from the house through the window, he springs into action. Slings his boots over his shoulders and, out of habit, tip-toes out of the room, sidesteps the particularly squeaky floorboard, dances around the clutter of buckets, knick-knacks, and other nonsense in her tiny, cramped hallway and makes it smoothly onto the top of the stairs. His silent whoop of victory crumbles when he spots someone standing at the bottom.

He completely forgot Aerith lives with her mother.

Boy, oh boy.

Aerith’s mother stares him coolly and completely down, despite him having the high ground, and crooks one finger toward him, beckoning him into her presence. Zack takes a deep, anchoring breath and steels himself. He’s never been more terrified in his life.

He’s been terrified only one other time _for_ his life.

When he finally reaches the bottom of the stairs, her mother is seated at the table, arms crossed over her chest.

“We—haven’t officially met, have we?” Zack slips an easy grin on his face, trying to kick the most charming part of his brain into overdrive.

“No, but I’ve heard all about you, Mr. Fair.” It fails. “Sit.”

He sits obediently, sets his boots onto the floor beside him and tents his fingers on the table as Aerith’s mother looks him up and down.

“Ma’am, I—”

“You can call me Mrs. Gainsborough.”

“Mrs. Gainsborough, I—”

She cuts him off anyway. “You know, I’ve heard so much about you, but only in the past year, and only because I pried.” She sighs and the tension in her brows release. She doesn’t look angry, just tired. “In so many ways Aerith has always been an open book, and such a chatterbox. She could prattle on for hours and hours before she’d tire, and would still want to keep talking past her bedtime. It’s…incredible she ever kept you a secret at all. She’s only successfully kept one secret from me. Though I have my suspicions about it…

“But…I can see why she didn’t want to talk about you, to me, anyway. It’s too similar. Shinra, the military, SOLDIER. Never being quite certain that you’d ever come back, that you’d stay safe. Knowing how painful it would end if you didn’t.”

He swallows the dry, brittle feeling in the back of his throat. The world keeps turning but stays ever the same.

“She knew my overprotectiveness would just lead to arguments, so she never said a word long after her heart was broken. She was always so good at smiling and carrying on—I don’t think she ever knew how to be otherwise. She had to stay strong to survive and I—I never would have guessed my little girl was in so much pain had I not stumbled upon a crumpled-up piece of paper that didn’t quite make it into her waste bin. Can you guess what that was, Mr. Fair?” He can. “It was a letter. Her sixty-third letter, in fact.”

Mrs. Gainsborough sighs again, folds her hands over the table and stares directly through him, without fear or contempt, in a way not many people would with mako SOLDIER eyes. “That child has shouldered more heartache and heartbreak than should be considered just in this impossible, unrelenting world. So please, if you want to leave, do it now. No fuss, no questions. Walk out that door and never look back—because _that_? That, she can move on from. But don’t stick around only to break her heart all over again.”

Zack nearly laughs at the insinuation. “Mrs. Gainsborough, I—your daughter is the reason I’m here. The _only_ thing that kept me going, that led me across Gaia and back to Midgar, was the thought of seeing her face. So long as there’s even a single breath in this body, I will never leave her side again.” He rubs the back of his head sheepishly. “Well, that’s if she’ll have me, anyway.”

“Then you better keep breathing, Zack Fair.” Her lips curl into a wry smile. “Now, what do we need in order to build that flower wagon?”

+++

They head to the church early the next morning with the flower wagon in tow.

“You sure you’re up for it?” Aerith asks for like the seventh time, and Zack replies for like the seventh time, “Yes, I’m sure.” Adds, to try and wrangle a precious smile out of her, “I’ve got you to protect me, right?”

Success, a smile! “That’s right.” But she slows her pace anyway, because maybe she notices that Zack’s still more sluggish than he ought to be. He’s enjoying the walk and the way her braid swishes behind her as she leads them through familiar old streets, hands clasped behind her back. Her pink ribbon rustles in the wind and he resists every urge to tug on it.

They still haven’t _talk_ talked yet—about the laboratory, the journey, the eighty-nine letters, the distance of five whole years—but they’re talking. She’s smiling. It’s good.

“But why are we going to the church when you’ve grown an entire forest in your frontyard?”

Aerith hums. “The church is special.” She glances back at him with another dazzling smile that threatens to spoil him rotten. “It’s where it all started, after all.”

“Us?” He can’t help but hope.

“The _flowers_.”

She has such a way of twisting him up and around her dainty little fingers and he can’t help the deep chuckle that escapes his throat. It takes a moment for her to join him, and the sound is like music to his ears. They laugh all the way to the church and it feels so devastatingly, so achingly, heart-fillingly good.

“It’s…it’s really nice to have you back,” Aerith says softly, shyly, ghosting her fingers against his bare arm, before skittering off through the entryway without a second look back.

He rubs at his arm with his bare hand. It’s nice to _be_ back.

Aerith is already tending to the flowers, picking and pruning and watering with a familiar plastic can she’s always kept tucked under one of the church pews. He wheels the wagon in behind her, so she can start placing flowers in the vases they’ve pre-filled with water.

“Tell me what I can do.”

“Oh, you can just wait and rest over there.”

“Aeriiiiith.”

She laughs and gently bites on the bottom of her very plump lip. “You’re pretty impatient, huh?”

She has no idea. “If you don’t give me something to do, I’m gonna start squatting.”

“Okay, okay, come over here and help.” He kneels beside her and nods for further instruction, so she lifts one flower close to his face. “I want these bright yellow ones, but you have to make sure there’s no white on the ed—”

He spots a golden flower amid a patch of paler yellow blossoms before she finishes her sentence, twists the stem in two and offers it to her, eager for praise. “Like this, right?”

Her mouth puckers into a soft pink ‘o’ and Zack notices but doesn’t quite understand why her eyes seem to shine a little brighter at that. She ducks her head and tucks the flower behind her ear. “Exactly, just like this.”

They’re nearly finished filling the vases with those bright yellow flowers when the doors to the church burst open.

“Well, well, well, I’m seeing a ghost, _yo_.” Zack’s blood runs cold in his veins. “Looks like the rumors were true.”

“Reno…” His body reacts on instinct, pulls Aerith behind him by the arm before crouching into a defensive stance.

“What a way to greet an old friend!” Reno’s grin is all sharp white teeth as he taps his nightstick against his shoulder.

“Reno, please don’t do this,” Aerith pleads, hands braced against Zack’s arm.

He shrugs. “Sorry, princess, nothing personal. We’re not even here for you—runaway test subject business is Turks business.” He glances pointedly back at the three men behind him and barks, “And Turks business means _scram_!” The Shinra guards exchange hesitant glances, but when Reno snarls they hurry away, closing the doors behind them.

“Test sub—” Aerith’s voice is sharp and panicked and Zack groans. Things had _just_ started feeling normal again and—

“You mean he hasn’t told you yet?” Reno clicks his tongue, wagging a condescending finger at them. “You guys really need to communicate better. Though, well, guess you can’t since I’ve gotta bring ya—”

Zack leaps forward with a growl, and wood meets electrifying metal with a satisfying sizzle. He’s suddenly extremely grateful Aerith let him tag along to her flower delivery to the Leaf House yesterday. Not only was it heartwarming to see the kids all grown up yet still waving around those silly wooden swords he carved for them all those years ago, but the visit ended with Oates kicking him in the shin and telling him to take better care of Aerith—and handing him a giant wooden bat wrapped in gauze and fitted with nails. That cheeky, thieving little brat.

Reno leers as he presses closer, sending sparks flaring and crackling between their faces. “Welcome home, Zack, buddy.” He slacks his grip and, caught off-guard, Zack lurches forward in surprise. It gives Reno just enough time to sidestep and bring his weapon crashing onto his back with a painful crunch.

“Reno, _please_!”

He sighs and hunches his shoulders, glancing over at Aerith. “Look, I told ya not to take it personally.”

“There isn’t a single impersonal thing about this!”

Her voice cuts through the pounding in his head and Zack thinks maybe he shouldn’t have done those hundred secret squats in the middle of the night. His body feels sore and bruised and the taste of mako and bile snakes up the back of his throat. While Reno is distracted, Zack reaches for his ankle and _pulls_. Reno falls flat on his back into the pews, wood splintering and cracking to pieces. “Fuck!”

Zack heaves onto his knees with a grunt, hacks out blood and wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand. He doesn’t hear Aerith move, but feels her hands suddenly on his shoulders and a steady burst of warm air winds through his entire body. It’s just enough to get him standing, though she keeps her hands on his back for support. Reno frontflips straight onto his feet, lip busted and bleeding. Zack tenses and wields his nail bat, breathes a little easier when he hears Aerith scrambling back toward safety. Then Reno licks his lips clean and procures three small metal balls from inside his suit jacket.

“Didn’t think I’d have to use these so quickly, but guess you’re still SOLDIER, after all.”

“Not…SOLDIER anymore,” Zack grits out, bracing himself for some Shinra magitech nonsense.

“Maybe not,” Reno says agreeably, tossing one ball clean into the air, winding up with his left arm to strike. “But still a goddamn wei—”

Reno’s eyes widen just a fraction before he crumples straight to the ground. Zack blinks, dazed and bewildered, until he looks up from Reno’s still form to follow the line of Aerith’s lilac dress, up her bare arms to the rusted metal chair in her hands.

“Um?” He’s tongue-tied and unable to stop admiring the way her bangs have matted over her forehead, the beads of sweat trickling from her brow down her chin and the long expanse of her neck. Her chest heaves from exertion, but there’s a glimmer of triumph in her eyes before she casts them over to him worriedly.

“You okay?” She sets the chair gently against a fallen pew, before dusting her hands off on the front of her dress. “We got lucky, I’ve seen what he can do with those balls.”

“ _UM_?”

She nudges Reno’s prone form with the toe of her boot before nodding, satisfied. “Okay, he’s out cold. Let’s go out the back.” When Zack doesn’t move, she tsks and closes the distance between them, takes him by the hand and leads him out the back door, through a narrow passageway, and under a rotting wooden beam to what looks like a dead end. Aerith walks over to the furthest wall and removes a thin plank of wood to unveil a snug hole that exits onto a dirt path behind the church.

“It’s how I always used to escape. Tseng still doesn’t know about this one.” She replaces the wooden plank as best she can from the other side and dusts her hands off. Then catches him staring. “Zack?”

“You’re _incredible_ ,” he blurts out, awestruck.

“Oh, well, thanks.” Aerith grins, pleased.

“But I can’t stay here.”

“ _What?_ ” The heartbreak shows clearly on her face and Zack groans and shakes his head and his hands until he’s dizzy all over again.

“No. Sorry, I mean— _we_ can’t stay. There’s always been a target on your back, but now there’s one on mine, too. It’s just not safe.” He slams a fist into his open palm with a sudden, striking clarity. “We have to leave Midgar.”

“But…”

He follows his heart. “I…promised I’d show you the sky, right?”

“Mm.” Her eyes soften.

“Okay, you go home and tell your mother. Don’t open the door for anyone. I’ll figure out some transport and we’ll leave at midnight. Pack everything you’ll both need to start over.”

Aerith’s eyes balloon wide. “Zack Fair, did you just propose a romantic and suspenseful getaway, fulfilling a five-year-old promise with your girlfriend only to also invite _her mother_ along for the ride?”

He’s so deliriously happy at the word _girlfriend_ that he’s slow to catch the rest of her question—is too busy taking in her beautiful, sweaty face and those lovely hands on her hips and the new tear on the side of her dress that’s currently exposing so much leg…huh?

“Oh. Um. Well. I mean. It wouldn’t be safe for—” And then she’s launching herself straight at him, and her body fits so perfectly against his, and her hands are warm on his cheeks before they wind around his neck, pulling him closerfaster _deeper_ —

“So,” he pants against very swollen lips, “is that a yes?”

They make their way briskly back into the heart of the slums where they mean to part, her for the house and him to look for a way out, but her hand lingers on his arm as if unable to let go.

“Be careful.” She can’t look him in the eye.

“I’ll be back by midnight,” he promises, pressing a kiss to her temple.

+++

He _really_ doesn’t mean to break his first promise to Aerith after five years, but he does and he hates it, knocks softly on her front door at a quarter past.

“You’re late,” she hisses through a crack before pulling it wide open to let him in. Her hands are already on her hips as if to give him a stern talking-to, before her eyebrows knit with worry. He must look worse than he feels.

“What happened?” she asks, peppering his face with her feather-light touches. Her fingertips come away red, but she seems to note that most of it isn’t his, casts a sidelong glance at the stained nail bat he eases against the door.

“Nothing they didn’t deserve?” he asks, hoping it’s enough, and she makes a noise of acceptance as she washes her hands in the kitchen sink. She returns with a damp cloth to wipe his face down.

“I wish I could have salvaged the flowers we picked, but I thought it was safer not to,” Zack trails off, glancing back at the empty flower wagon parked just outside the door.

“Why did you go back for it? That was so stupidly danger—”

“Because I figured it would help us move the luggage?” It sounds pragmatic, though they both know he’s lying. He shrugs. “Fill Kalm with flowers, fill our wallets with money?”

Mrs. Gainsborough chooses that moment to come down the stairs with a box in her hands, stacks it on top of the two by the door, next to three bulging satchels. It’s less than he was expecting. “Did you find it?”

“It’s old, but should get us to Kalm.” He holds up a set of keys and she nods and takes it from his hands.

“We were right not to pack away the first aid kit. Aerith, you can tend to him in the backseat. I’ll drive.”

“But, Mrs. Gainsborough—”

“Call me Elmyra,” she huffs, and that stops any further argument.

Aerith fusses over him the entire drive through the night, wiping and disinfecting and bandaging even the tiniest scrape. He can’t complain when she’s forced his head onto her lap and all he can see is her determined face swimming above.

“Where did you get the buggy?” she asks finally, sticking one last bandage over the bridge of his nose.

“An angel?” She tilts her head and he laughs. “A different kind of angel,” he amends hoping she’ll catch the hint.

Her eyes balloon wide. “Do you know the Angel of the Slums?”

He winks and then immediately winces as the car hits a particularly hard bump in the road. Aerith keeps him from rolling off the seat and he sighs, takes one of her hands in his and presses them to his cheek.

“You’re amazing, you know that?”

“Oh, I’m nothing special,” she laughs, twining their fingers together and using the same tone of voice as _later, later_.

“No, I mean it. You are. I can’t thank you enough.”

“For patching you up?”

“For _finding_ me.” He brings her hand to his lips again because he just can’t help himself. “For wanting me. Thank you, thank you, _thank you_.” He chokes back a sob because it’s really hitting him for the first time that she’s here, and he’s here because she _wants_ him here, with her. That she waited for him, that she left with him—left behind the only home she’s ever really known.

“Well, don’t get too used to it,” she teases, though her voice is soft and low and her eyes are shining. “A girl can’t wait around forever.”

Before he can reply, the buggy stops short and Elmyra’s amused voice rings out, “We’re here, lovebirds.” Zack has the decency to feel shy, lifts his head from Aerith’s lap and notices for the first time that night has creeped into day. He opens the door and motions for her exit first.

Kalm glows warm and gold in the rising sun, all tiled rooftops and brick buildings and stone archways. Not a steel column in sight. The night sky has winked out of existence completely, replaced with streaks of pale blues and pinks and oranges.

“Not so scary, now is it?”

“No, not scary at all.”

When she turns to him, his face is reflected in her eyes.

+++

Kalm is, well, calm. A quaint town full of the hustle and bustle of suburbia…and flowers. Flowers thrive in Kalm since there’s plenty of fresh air and sunshine. So much for filling their wallets.

“Why do you look upset at that?” He’s been a bundle of nervous energy all day, bouncing his leg up and down while checking the classifieds.

“Maybe this was a mistake,” Zack says softly. They only have enough money to stay a single night at the inn. “Maybe I shouldn’t have brought you and Elmyra here just because of my selfish—”

“Hey, hey,” Aerith tuts. “You were right, Midgar wasn’t any safer for us than anywhere else—it was just the most familiar kind of danger. But the air smells sweeter here, and the sky is so bright, so beautiful. The possibilities seem endless.” She takes his hand in both of hers and squeezes.

He sighs again, but can’t quite muster up the same enthusiasm.

“You’ll see—look, I was already planning to drop by the flower shop to see if they’re hiring.”

The flower shop is not. The bell chimes bittersweetly as they leave the store with even less money and a potted iris plant, because “it would be rude to leave without buying a thing.”

“There goes dinner.” He tugs at a flower petal. Aerith swats his hand away as they walk back toward the inn.

“Maybe we can sell them the flower wagon,” she muses thoughtfully, but must see Zack’s absolutely stricken face because she amends, with a nervous laugh, “Just kidding, just kidding. Hey.” She takes his hand again and swings it back and forth. “We’ll find a way.”

Back at their room, Elmyra is sifting through their boxes, with various knick-knacks strewn across her bed. “Good timing,” she greets with a smile. “I was thinking we could use the flower wagon to peddle some of our old antiques. I hear there’s an unofficial flea market in front of the collapsed tunnel on the other side of town.”

She pulls out a set of pewter candlestick holders and he frowns. “Didn’t you tell me those were from your wedding?”

“Hmm,” she says, turning them over in her hands thoughtfully. “Oh! I suppose they are!” She plops them straight into the cart.

“Have you women no sentimental value?” Zack whines, squatting in frustration.

Elmyra raises an eyebrow and Aerith chuckles as she places her new iris on the windowsill. “I may have joked about selling the flower wagon.”

“Ah, good idea. It’s sturdy enough that it might fetch a decent price.”

Zack stomps his feet and ignores Aerith and Elmyra’s twin grins. “I will go out and look for work,” he says, slinging his nail bat onto his back and crossing his arms over his chest in a manner he hopes looks menacing and manly. “You both, stay here. And don’t sell _anything_!”

He makes it exactly five steps outside the inn before Aerith falls right into step with him. “Whatcha gonna do?”

“Look for odd jobs? I was thinking about becoming a mercenary.”

“Hmmmm. Sounds fun. I’ll go too.”

Zack stops short, but Aerith doesn’t, walks straight past him with her hands behind her back, clutching a familiar metal rod. “Whoa, whoa, it might be dangerous.”

“What do you think this is for?” She brandishes her weapon at him.

“Shower curtains?”

She prods him in the chest with it and arches an eyebrow. “Look closer.”

Upon further inspection it is not, in fact, a curtain rod. There are intricate patterns engraved into the metal, with obvious grooves for hand placement. “Vintage,” he compliments.

“ _And_ eco-friendly.” She giggles. “C’mon, there’s sure to be quests afoot at the tavern.” She sprints ahead and Zack has no choice but to follow.

“At least promise you’ll stay behind me!” She of course makes no such promises.

And in the end, he’s glad she didn’t.

They’re dispatched to clean out a pack of wild elfadunks that made their nest too close to the outskirts of Kalm. The pay is mediocre, the fight is easy, and Aerith _mostly_ stays behind him, although she gets a few good whacks in with her guard stick. Zack tucks the elfadunk tusks into his satchel for proof of a job well done, and they make their way back to town just as night begins to fall. They’re almost at the town’s edge when they’re accosted by a group of malicious goons.

“We don’t _have_ money!” Zack groans, but wields his bat when they continue to press closer. All he wants to do is take a shower and fall face-first into his bed after inhaling whatever dinner they can afford from the tavern, but nooooo. He quickly knocks three of the goons out cold with the un-nailed portion of the bat—because he’s had enough blood on his hands for a lifetime—before rounding on the last goon, who’s trembling all over and holding up a small metal cage in his hands menacingly.

“S-s-s-s-s-s-stay back!” The tremble even vibrates his words.

“ _You’re_ the one who attacked us!” Zack grouches, hands on his hips. “Besides, whattarya gonna do? Sic your cat on us?”

He takes a menacing step closer, and then another, before the goon trips over his own feet in his attempt to run away, and the metal cage goes tumbling to the ground.

“Zack.” Aerith’s voice is strained.

“Allergies?” He glances back with a grin, but she shakes her head and points toward the cage.

The door is ajar. A tiny light flickers in the depths, moving oh-so-slowly out of the dark. The tiny light is followed by a pair of glowing gold eyes. And a knife that catches silver in the moonlight.

It’s a fucking _tonberry_?

“Aerith, _move_!” Zack slams his body against hers and rolls them away just as the tonberry moves like lightning, its knife piercing the air they once occupied. He knows they can’t run, and they certainly can’t let it roam into town, so Zack crouches into an offensive stance, waits until he sees it move to parry the first blow, then pummels the nail bat against it with everything he’s got. It barely staggers back after a solid thirty whacks, and Zack pants heavily, bat at the ready as the tonberry stares unblinkingly. And then _jumps_ —

“ZACK!”

Time stands still.

Zack can’t move his mouth, can’t move his arms or legs, but luckily, apparently, neither can the tonberry. The knife has pierced the outer layer of his armor, but it’s not sinking in any deeper. With great effort he manages to glance over at Aerith, who is using her guard stick for support. She’s crying and Zack wishes he could wipe away her tears.

He’s had enough of _that_ for a lifetime, too.

And then she closes her eyes, inhales a commanding breath and the wind picks up violently all around them. “ _Tempest!_ ”

Nothing remains but a knife and a lantern.

Time catches up to him as Aerith rushes over, fingers frantically tracing his chest, eyes searching for his. He chokes in an attempt to breathe too much, too fast and she startles. “It got you a little—are you okay?”

“A battle angel,” he says reverently, and brings his hands up in front of him.

“What? Don’t be _silly_.” She laughs, but claps her hands against his.

“I may be silly,” Zack declares, tying the lantern onto his belt and stowing the knife, carefully, into his satchel, “but you’re still amazing.”

She hums nonchalantly, pleased.

Turns out, a real tonberry knife and lantern set sell for a pretty penny. It’s not enough to live off of forever, but it’s enough for a down payment on a two-bedroom, third-story flat in the middle of town.

+++

Zack spends Kalm mornings helping Elmyra load the previous day’s haul into the wagon he’s affectionately dubbed the “Loot Wagon.” Elmyra packs a thermos of tea and a pastry into her satchel before they set off, Zack rolling the wagon to the far side of town while she takes stock of the goods and makes notes to upsell anything that gave them a bit more trouble to obtain. When Elmyra is settled among the rest of the stalls, he strolls back home, stopping by the flower store to pick up the latest plant Aerith has ordered for her ever expanding windowsill garden. Flowers may be plentiful in Kalm, but there’s nothing fresher and more invigorating than the herbs she cultivates.

He reads the newspaper every morning while eating breakfast with Aerith. News travels slowly in the suburbs, and it takes several days for reports of Midgar’s Sector 7 plate battle to make the front page of _The Daily Kalm_. That, more than anything, reaffirms Zack’s decision to relocate them all. Midgar is a city ablaze with riots now that the cat’s out of the bag and its citizens know that Shinra would have dropped the plate on its own people, if not for the efforts of a certain eco-terrorist cell.

It’s strange, though. The article includes a grainy shot of a helicopter carrying off a pair of men dressed in black suits. If the Turks were involved, the plate should have fallen. The Turks always get the job done…right?

Zack frowns and wonders for the first time if maybe, just maybe, Reno had been pulling his punches.

After breakfast, he and Aerith hit the town to scope out the latest gossip and any odd jobs they can tackle. They’ll do almost anything for the right price: fix some fences, find some cats, fight some foes. The number of monsters in the area has increased as of late, and though Zack mostly appreciates the steady stream of jobs and goods that come out of it, a part of him is a little worried.

By the time night falls, they trudge home with full-to-bursting satchels, usually dirty and sweaty, and stiff as all hell. They dump their goods into the corner of the flat next to the Loot Wagon, to be sorted and categorized and sold the next day, but the smell of Elmyra’s home-cooked dinner always rouses their spirits enough for seconds, and sometimes thirds. They chat about their days, what was a hit at the market, what Zack and Aerith hit in the grasslands, before showers are had, thanks and goodnights are exchanged, and Aerith and Zack retreat to their room.

Yes, their room.

He still has no idea how Aerith conned Elmyra into _that_ arrangement, except she’s Aerith and irresistible and he can’t imagine anyone _not_ doing whatever her little heart desires. He certainly can’t.

But, he’s a gentleman.

And Elmyra’s bedroom, while situated across the living area from theirs, is still right there.

He tries to be a gentleman, anyway.

Because at night, snuggled into a single bed much too small for them both, bodies warm and soft and yielding and away from the world that turns endlessly around them, they can finally _talk_.

He tells her about the laboratory, what little he has pieced together from his nightmares. The injections, the endless samples, the twisted cackle of a mad man. Suffocating. About the country town that burned to the ground only to be rebuilt seemingly overnight. He tells her that her twenty-three tiny wishes, her single greatest wish, was the only thing that gave him any sense of direction when all he felt was loss. He tells her about Angeal, about Genesis, about the dumbapples. About the end. He tells her how her final letter devastated him. To find out that over four years had passed and he wasn’t sure if she would even—

She tells him about her mother—her first mother, Ifalna. She tells him about their bedroom in the laboratory of Shinra headquarters, how they would take her mother from her every morning and how she would return every night, a little less whole. The twisted cackle of a mad man. She tells him about Reno, Rude, and Tseng. About the pack of crayons Reno slipped to her while Rude kept watch. About the eighty-eight letters she entrusted to Tseng, week after week, month after month, and how she wasn’t sure if he was even—

One night, instead of one of his old t-shirts and a pair of shorts, she wears a familiar gauzy yellow nightie that leaves him…sweating. _Kalm springs mean summer weather, after all_ , the old ladies at the supermarket titter when they spy him following Aerith through the aisles.

They don’t have an air conditioner and when she joins him in bed, he’s already shirtless.

It’s _hot_ , okay.

It’s _unbearably hot_ , okay.

He can’t be a gentleman for the rest of his life, _okay_.

So he presses her chest flush against his and skims his hands over the fabric on her hips, trails them down the skin of her thighs. He asks into the shell of her ear, why she doesn’t seem to wear pink anymore and she admits, fingers tracing the scars on his chest that she’d grown tired of it—she’s been wearing pink for five years straight, after all—and that she doesn’t feel the need to wear it ever again because she’ll never have to _meet_ him now that he’s here to stay. But, oh, she still loves her ribbon. He sobs into a laugh and smothers every inch of her skin with searing kisses and promises to buy her ribbons in every color she wants.

She gasps against his throat and tells him exactly what she wants.

After, he burrows his face into her hair, unable to stop his tears from coming so she kisses them away and rubs soothing circles into his back, says, “Talk to me.”

“This can’t be real.”

“It is.”

“It’s not fair.”

“ _What’s_ not?”

“I don’t deserve to be this happy.” He hiccups, and feels her gentle smile against his collar bone.

“Of course you do— _we_ do,” she adds, because she knows he’ll never disagree when it comes to her.

“I don’t want to leave.” He wraps his arms tighter around her, bruises her to his side. “I don’t want to leave—all I want to do is spend more time with you, but I can’t—I have to…I _need_ to know if my parents are okay.”

A promise to return lays thick and heavy on his lips, but she beats him to it. “We’ll go together.” And seals it with a kiss. “No more pink, remember?”

+++

“How will we get there?” Aerith squints at the map they’ve laid out on their kitchen table.

“Hmm, the safest way for us layfolk is probably to hike the Serpent’s Path up the mountains to get to the other side,” Zack says, tapping on the Mythril Mountain range, before sliding his finger toward the very bottom edge. “But the trail entrance is all the way down here, and since it was carved mostly for recreation, it winds all the way toward Midgar before looping back around to let you cross over the other side.”

“So, what’s the fastest way?” she asks knowingly.

Zack crosses his arms over his chest. “It’ll be dangerous.”

“Try me.”

“Ever ride a chocobo before?”

+++

Aerith is surprisingly graceless when it comes to chocobos.

The first one they find is cautious, but finally takes to their pile of Gysahl Greens after they’ve chased away all the monsters in the area. Zack and Aerith inch closer and closer until he manages to get a hand onto the chocobo’s back to keep it still. “All right, go ahead,” he says, and Aerith nods, braces her hands on the chocobo’s neck and tries to get one one leg over its back—and ends up falling flat on her butt. The chocobo skitters away with a frantic wark.

“Don’t say a word,” she warns, dusting her hands off on the back of her shorts.

In his defense, laughing isn’t _technically_ words.

They manage to find a second chocobo after a quick picnic lunch. This time Aerith is prepared with a splurge of Krakka Greens. She stops him from interfering with a stern look, before sidling slowly over, offering the greens with the open palm of her hand. It tilts its head one way, then the other, and then takes a curious step forward. When it takes its first nibble, Aerith smiles and lays a hand on its back. And then it shrieks straight in her ear, sending greens flying and Aerith tumbling to the ground once more.

He picks grass out of her hair and thinks he does a pretty good job of keeping a straight face—until he notices the smudge of dirt along her chin. She smacks him away when he tries to mollify her with a kiss. “ _You_ try, then!”

The third one they find bows grandly at Zack’s approach. He hoists himself up easily onto its back and waggles his eyebrows at Aerith. “What can I say, the ladies love me!”

“Well, have a good trip then,” she huffs before storming off in the direction of the Chocobo Ranch. Zack guides the chocobo directly into her path with ease.

“No more pink, remember? C’mere.” He opens his arms wide and scoops her up by the armpits, seats her securely in front of him. He places her arms over the Chocobo’s neck and covers them with one of his own, the other arm slung over her stomach, drawing her closer to his chest. “You’re going to need to hang on real tight, okay? And try not to scream.”

“Why?”

He kicks his legs instead of replying, and the chocobo speeds off, talons ricocheting across the marshes followed by the slurping slither of the Midgar Zolom right on their heels.

Aerith doesn’t stop screaming until they’re through the other side of the mines.

+++

It’s already nightfall by the time they find themselves on the other side of the mountains, so they set down their packs and build a small fire to warm their canned food for dinner.

“It should be half a day’s journey to Junon at this rate.”

“Mm.”

When he glances up at her, Aerith is idly swirling her spoon in her can of vegetable soup, eyes trained on the endless sea of stars above.

“I thought you’d be used to the starry night sky by now,” he teases, bumping his shoulder against hers.

“I thought so too, and yet—here in the grasslands, where there’s no other light besides our fire, it’s like a completely different sky. Magical.” She scoots closer and leans her head against his shoulder. “Do you know any constellations?”

“No, not here—never got to study the stars on this continent.” There’s a small niggling feeling in the pit of his stomach that he buries down with the rest of his food. The chocobo warbles quietly, a comforting distraction as it settles against his other side, legs tucked under its body, beak nuzzling his arm. “Aw, hey, Sunny.”

Aerith makes a face at him.

“What?”

“You’ve _named_ it?”

“I’ve named _her_ ,” Zack corrects, wrapping an arm around them both.

“How do you even know it’s a girl?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” He glances up at her with doe eyes. “Because she’s so strong!”

Aerith’s mouth twists like she’s torn between being charmed and annoyed.

+++

They arrive at Under Junon early in the afternoon, when the sun is at its highest point in the sky, but all light winks out of existence when they step through the town gates.

“A steel sky,” Aerith murmurs as Zack helps her off of Sunny, glancing up at the skyscraping steel plates supporting Upper Junon. “I can’t believe I ever thought I’d miss it.”

“We won’t stay long,” Zack promises, placing a hand on her shoulder. “We just need to find a way to the port and hitch a ride to the western continent. I’m gonna ask around, will you stay here with Sunny?”

Aerith wrinkles her nose. “I’d rather not, but go on.” She settles a hand on Sunny’s neck, who indignantly ruffles her large feathery wings. Zack laughs and heads into town.

After a solid thirty minutes without a single lead, Zack thinks he maybe should have asked Aerith to gather intel instead. Every person he tries to chat up immediately flinches at the sight of his eyes, their contempt for the mark of SOLDIER made crystal clear. He doesn’t blame them. From the looks of it, Under Junon must have once been a thriving fishing town before Upper Junon was built, condemning its villagers to darkness and polluting its oceans with mako sludge.

His eyes don’t have any effect on the Shinra infantryman guarding the elevator to Upper Junon, though, who yells at him to stop snooping around, before muttering something about extra shifts to prepare for the arrival of Shinra’s new president.

Zack sighs and decides to head back to Aerith and regroup—except she’s nowhere in sight. He tries to quell his rising panic and doubles back into town, searches high and low and asks everyone if they’ve seen a beautiful woman wearing a pink bow. He must look pretty pathetic because eventually, the grandmother who’d initially refused to talk to him softens her gaze and asks if he’s searched the beach. He shakes her hand furiously with both of his before dashing off toward the stairs winding down and away from town.

He descends the last step and finds himself standing on a gray beach that opens up to an ocean tinged unearthly green, from which a twisting red electrical tower rises toward the sky. Aerith sits further down the beach, hair undone and fluttering in the stale breeze. Sunny nests beside her, legs tucked under her body, and in between them is a tiny child building a sandcastle. The girl says something Zack can’t quite catch from the distance, but Aerith smiles softly and leans closer, draws a pattern in the sand castle with her index finger.

It shouldn’t surprise him, seeing her getting on so well with an unfamiliar child. The kids at the Leaf House were always hanging around, clamoring for her attention—and yet. Something about it tugs at his heart strings, and he can feel the dopey smile creeping up his face as he watches.

Eventually, Aerith seems to notice his staring, glances over her shoulder with a light smile. She pats the space next to her. “Heya. Found what you were looking for?”

“Yes,” Zack says instantly, padding over and taking a seat. “Well, actually, no. No one will tell me how to get to the harbor.”

She smiles and leans back on her arms. “Good thing Priscilla’s agreed to help us out.”

At her name, Priscilla looks up from the sand castle and immediately goggles wide-eyed at Zack. “ _Pst pst_ , is that your boyfriend?” she whispers loudly behind her hand, into Aerith’s ear.

“He is.”

“He’s handsome,” Priscilla declares, forgoing all whispered pretense.

Zack preens and Aerith tsks. “He’s all right, but if you keep complimenting him he’ll get a big head.”

Priscilla smothers her face and her giggles into Sunny’s feathers, who warbles softly. It’s only then he catches sight of a familiar pink ribbon tied around her neck.

“Priscilla said she’ll take care of Sunny.”

He raises his eyebrows. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. She’s a natural with animals, and I figured it might help the town, too.” She glances over to where Priscilla has hopped onto Sunny’s back, guiding the chocobo along the water’s edge. “The way to the harbor—it would be hard to bring her along, and even if we could, I doubt we could sneak her onto the ship safely.”

“Are you getting sentimental about the thing you once called an overgrown chicken?”

She sniffs. “Her name is Sunny.”

“You gave your ribbon to her.”

“So we can recognize her when we visit.”

He smiles and winds an arm around her shoulders. “Yeah. Plus, I owe you another anyway, right?”

A second sniff. “In every color I want.”

He kisses the top of her head. “In every color that exists.”

+++

The boat ride is quiet. Too quiet. Aerith spends most of the journey leaning against the ship’s railing, staring off into the distance, hair whipping wildly behind her in the wind. She exhales and closes her eyes against the salty spray of the ocean and would look the perfect picture of peace if he wasn’t sure she was so damn sad. When he called her out on it, she claimed it was just a bout of seasickness, and he didn’t have the heart to point out that people who were seasick generally couldn’t stomach staring out into said sea. He knows from experience.

“Hey, why don’t we spend a week at Costa del Sol?” Zack tries during the final leg of the ride, once the tourist port town comes into view over the horizon.

“Huh?” It’s the first reaction he’s gotten out of her. “Why?”

“Because we’ve been traveling nonstop and I think we deserve a break.” And he’ll be damned if Junon’s shitty Shinra beach is the only one Aerith gets to see on this entire trip. “We can recharge, get some color, hit the beach.” He doesn’t think it worth mentioning that his nightmares are catching up to him, images of a blown up reactor, and the winding paths to Gongaga littered with shrapnel and ruin. The eternal question of whether Cissnei was telling the truth. It wouldn’t have been the first time a Turk lied to him, after all.

She glances at him dubiously. “I don’t have a bathing suit.”

“I don’t either.” He pushes down the icy tendrils of doubt and forces an impish grin on his face. “Skinny dipping?”

She laughs and pushes at his chest, and the bubble of sadness seems to burst for both of them.

“Okay, we can buy ’em,” Zack offers as Aerith settles into his arms.

“I don’t know how to swim.”

“I’ll teach you.”

She’s still a little hesitant, but maybe she can sense that he needs this just as much as she does. “All right. Let’s stay.”

So they head straight to the inn after disembarking, and put down enough money for a week.

“Swimsuit shopping?” Zack asks, after they’ve unpacked some of their belongings.

“I think I can handle that on my own,” she says sweetly. “But maybe you can toss some clothes into the coin laundry I saw in the lobby, and I’ll meet you back here in a few hours?”

“Sure. I’ll go pick up some supplies—oh, and sunscreen, too.”

“So responsible!”

“Well, I gotta take care of this beautiful face.” Zack winks, pinning his index finger and thumb against his chin. “My girlfriend is pretty shallow, so she’d hate for anything to happen to it.”

“Pffbt,” is Aerith’s very mature response, which turns into a “ _Mmnf_ ,” when he swoops down and swallows her raspberry with his mouth.

“Yuck!” she cries, pushing him away but unable to keep the smile off her face. “Now your mouth is all wet.”

“Been there, done that.”

He snickers when she ducks her head and stomps out the door. “Goodbye!”

He loads their laundry into a machine before heading down the boardwalk to look for a sundries store. There’s three in a row peddling what appear to be the exact same goods so he chooses one at random, picks out a pair of cheap black trunks, a big tube of sunscreen, sunglasses, towels and flip-flops, snacks, more snacks, and then stumbles upon a rack of souvenirs. Most of them are cheesy, touristy goods with the Costa del Sol logo emblazoned all over, but at the very bottom is a small collection of accessories. He picks out a ribbon patterned like a cloudy blue sky, and a matching woven bracelet. The bracelet he slips onto his left wrist after paying for his purchases, and he’s about to follow his nose toward something that smells delicious and fried when he’s stopped short by a throaty wheeze.

_The twisted cackle of a mad man._

Zack’s blood turns to ice, because it can’t be—

Yet it is. Professor Hojo in the flesh, lounging on the beach in his stained lab coat, surrounded by ladies in low-cut swimsuits hand-feeding him fruit and drinks and hanging off his every word. Zack’s first instinct is to snatch up one of the beach umbrellas and impale the goddamn sonofabitch in the throat, but—there’s no way _that_ wouldn’t put a bigger target on their backs. And if Hojo is here, it could mean Costa del Sol is already overrun with Shinra forces. He books it all the way back to the room. Admittedly he’s not paying any attention, so it’s on him when he bumps into something large and round and is knocked clean off his feet.

“Watch it!” A gruff rumble and what looks like a giant metal paw…

Zack blinks. Was that a bear wearing a marshmallow?

He shakes it off and doubles his pace. When he returns to the inn, he gathers their damp clothes from the machine and cuts their stay short with the innkeep, decides to pay for one full night in order to recoup the rest of the deposit. He unlocks the door to their room, tosses everything onto the closest bed, and figures he’ll have enough time to think up an excuse—

“Oh, you’re back!”

Damn it.

“Yeah, hey, listen—” he starts, and doesn’t get to finish because Aerith bounds out of the bathroom wearing a bikini that leaves very little to the imagination. The top is a bandeau of sky-blue fabric held together by a thin, corded white rope that criss-crosses over a pale valley of skin.

“What do you think?” She’s using her best _ta-dah_ voice as she twirls for his appraisal. The back of her bottom is covered by the barest triangle-shaped scrap of fabric. He _thinks_ she looks like endless summer delight and the urge to commit murder intensifies.

Zack groans into his hands.

“That good?”

“Mmhm.”

“What else?” Her voice lowers, worried.

There’s no hiding it now. “Hojo is here.”

She sobers instantly, comes over to place a grounding hand on his shoulder. “Are you sure?”

“I’d know that laugh anywhere. I already squared up with the inkeep, but we need to leave. Now.”

She nods and helps pack up their belongings, before slipping into a white tank top and a pair of tan cargo shorts.

So much for summer delight.

+++

With their beach week thwarted, they have just enough money to rent a chocobo carriage all the way to Gongaga, so they spend the rest of the day eating snacks and breezing south through the continent, the air humid and sticky and clinging to their skin. Still, Aerith seems to be enjoying herself, which is good enough for him. She pokes her head straight out the window with childlike glee, sunlight dancing on her eyelashes and cheeks, hair whipping around to smack him repeatedly in the face.

“That reminds me,” Zack mumbles around a mouthful of her hair, digging into his pack as her face returns from the window curiously. Her eyes light up as he presents the ribbon to her with great fanfare. “The first of many,” he promises. “Here, let me.” He crosses over to her side of the carriage and combs his fingers through the top of her head and down through wild chestnut curls. His hand gets caught on a tangle of knots that he brushes straight through, which prompts a tiny, adorable yelp.

“Sorry.” He’s glad she can’t see his smile, as he isn’t at all sorry.

“You don’t sound at all sorry,” Aerith grumbles, and his laughter bubbles up as he gathers her hair and twists it into a messy, floppy bun on top of her head, tying it neatly off with a bow. He kisses the tip of her newly exposed ear before frowning and leaning down to inspect it closer.

“Hm?”

“Your ears are a little pink.” He rubs at them softly. “Do they hurt?”

“Mm, not that I really noticed.”

“Still—let’s get some sunscreen on you.” He digs again into his pack for the tube of sunscreen and squirts some onto the nape of her neck, grins when it elicits a tiny shiver. He carefully applies some onto the backs of her pinking ears, before rubbing it into her neck and across the tops of her shoulder blades, and down the entire length of her arms.

“You’re still so pale, it’s actually a wonder you haven’t burned up sooner,” he observes, chiding himself for the oversight as he turns her around to face him. The skin across the bridge of her nose is peeling lightly, and her cheeks are rosier than usual. He dollops some cream onto her forehead and rubs it gently in with his ring fingers, eyebrows narrowed in concentration.

“I’m not some delicate flower you need to protect,” Aerith muses, hands finding his wrist, tracing the length of his new bracelet with her fingertips, tugging at the corded tassel.

“I know.” He grins sheepishly at her. “But it doesn’t mean I’m not gonna try.”

“You’ll even fight the sun?” she teases as he gathers some more sunscreen on his fingers and gently covers her throat, thumbs swiping across the lines of her collar bones.

“Even the sun,” he replies soberly, before dipping two fingers between her breasts.

She gasps as his fingers wander just a little further. “I don’t know that the sun’s gonna find me there.”

“You can’t be too careful with exposed skin,” he whispers into her ear, and is maybe about to expose some more when the chocobo cart stops short and he crashes to the floor.

Aerith giggles and Zack groans, opens the door of the cart expecting to see Gongaga’s jungle forest, but instead sees water. “Hey, what gives?”

“Chocobos can’t cross the river,” the cart driver replies lazily. “This is as far as I can take you.”

+++

Zack thinks the chocobo carriage service could have mentioned _that_ to begin with, but it could definitely be worse, all things considered. Aerith is seated atop his shoulders with both packs and his boots strung over her back to keep them dry as he forges through the shallowest part of the river. Her thighs are pressed against the sides of his face, ankles crossed delicately against his stomach, and arms circled over his neck. He thinks he could get used to this.

“Too bad we didn’t have time to teach you how to swim,” Zack says, pressing his fingers into the smooth flesh of her thighs. For balance.

“Mm, you’re definitely broken up about it, huh?” Aerith wriggles her hips like a damn minx for good measure, and he wonders when he’s gotten to be so predictable.

They make it across the river just as the sun begins to set. The air on this side smells sweetly of honeyed dew, like his childhood, and Zack’s stomach twists into knots. He suggests taking a break for the night, but Aerith pragmatically points out that it’ll be more dangerous to continue on foot when the sun rises and the temperatures climb. He can’t argue against that—in fact, those were his thoughts exactly—so he puts on his boots and slings their packs over his shoulders and leads the way.

The stars are out in full force as they enter the jungle outskirts of Gongaga, and moonlight reflects off the giant cratered remains of the ruined mako reactor in the distance. Aerith gasps audibly at the sight and reaches for him.

“Zack…”

“No, I…already knew.” He finds her hand and squeezes. “We should camp here for the night. The pathways are pretty winding, so it’s easy to get lost in the dark, and—” He needs more time. She understands.

They set up camp in a familiar patch of jungle thicket that he recognizes from birthday nights nestled in between his mother and father, camping out under the stars. After dinner and as the last of the embers fade, they lay together on their backs, her head resting on his arm. He traces the stars with his finger, maps out constellations and recalls old Gongagan folklore passed down from generation to generation.

He tells her the story of Titan, the mighty god of Gaia who fell in love with a human. One day, Titan’s eternal conflict with the god of the skies, Bahamut, ended with him battered and broken by the river. A woman named Madeline found him there, and instead of fearing him—for Titan was not a particularly handsome god—she cared for him, made him whole again, and so they fell in love. Between them is a cluster of stars that represents Titan’s necklace of bones, which he gave to her after that meeting to symbolize their love and union. Madeline’s town prospered because of Titan’s grace, but the surrounding villages grew scornful and resentful of their good fortune. So the jealous villagers kept an eye on the town, and caught Madeline’s rendezvous with Titan, who would always disappear back into the earth when they parted. They were convinced he was the devil, called Madeline a demon’s siren and murdered her in cold blood. When Titan found the body of his slain lover, he razed the offending villages with an earth shattering roar and surrounded Madeline’s village with a thicket of jungle to protect them from harm. And thus Gongaga was born, meaning _loved by Gaia_.

“Why do all great love stories end in tragedy?” Aerith grumbles sleepily against his chest. Not _all_ great love stories, he thinks, kissing the top of her head “Tell me about your parents?”

So he does. He tells her about Adrien Fair, the hardest working man he’s ever known, though stubborn and bullish to a fault. About Evelyn Fair née Clime, the smartest woman in all of Gongaga, who could have done anything and been anything in the whole world, but stayed in the village for love. He grew up with so much love, but the village was old-fashioned, everyday the same, and he woke up on the morning of his thirteenth birthday and realized this wasn’t the kind of life he wanted to live. Not when he could look up into the sky and see endless possibilities just within reach. So he ran away from home and never looked back, only wrote them a single letter in all the time he’d been gone. She’s asleep before he can admit that his proudest achievement at the time was the fact that he could call her his girlfriend.

He scoops her into his arms and sets her down in their made up tent, is about to head back out to brood all night, when she tugs at the bracelet on his wrist.

“Stay,” she murmurs, and he’s tried so hard not to disappoint her since his return; he’s not going to start now. So he lays next to her and, lulled by her deep breathing, somehow manages to fall asleep.

+++

“Are you ready?” Aerith asks softly, palm on the small of his back as they stand between the crossroads to Gongaga.

“Yup!” He takes a firm step forward, before turning right back around and shaking his head. “Nope!” He huffs, does some squats, and then finally—stands in place.

“Zack. What’s wrong?”

“What if…what if they’re not there anymore?” he whispers brokenly. “What if I’m too late?”

“What if you’re not?” she whispers fiercely back, catching his face with both her hands. “You weren’t with me.”

And that’s what gives him enough courage to continue on. That, and Aerith’s hand like a lifeline.

The town is a bare facsimile of what he remembers, washed out in gray like the slums, only there’s a sky above their heads and jungle vines twisting and creeping in the periphery. Still, familiar puffs of smoke rise from the chimneys of Gongaga’s little brick houses and thatched rooftops, filling the air with the scent of sweet dew cakes and gingerberry tea. Zack leads them down well-trodden dirt roads, round the corner and further down until they find themselves in front of his childhood house. It’s mostly the same, but so was all of Nibelheim when he woke five years later.

He can’t breathe and he can’t knock—so Aerith does, crisp and sharp and jangling. She hadn’t worn her bangles for the entire trip until now. Her hair is done up in a fancier version of her usual braid, tied off with that sky blue bow, and he realizes with a start that he also recognizes that deep purple dress with delicate white flower detailing on the hems. It’s the dress that caught her eye in Kalm during their first week, but at the time felt too much for their meager budget. She shrugged it off, because it wasn’t as if she’d have anywhere to wear it _anyway_. But later, after they’d settled into their lives and had some change to spare, he went ahead and bought it. And instead of hemming and hawing and worrying that it was too much, she simply laughed with delight and promised she’d save it for a special occasion.

He might catch hell later for not noticing it all morning, but for now his heart feels filled to the brim and he thinks that he can face anything so long as Aerith is by his side. And then the door opens and his mother stands before him with her storm gray eyes, wrinkled around the edges, and jet black hair streaked with silver.

“Who is it?” His dad’s voice calls from within and Zack realizes he’s crying only because Aerith is wiping at his stupid face and pushing him gently forward into his mother’s embrace.

The first night he’s a mess and he can barely keep his eyes open, let alone dry, and all he does is babble apologies over and over. Aerith has to pry him off his mother’s side so she can prepare dinner and both parents laugh when he immediately latches onto Aerith instead, getting snot and tears all over her special dress.

“Can’t see what that boy did to deserve a wife like you.” His father shakes his head as he lights his pipe.

“Oh, we’re not married,” Aerith replies cheekily, threading her hands through his hair. “He should be so lucky.”

They spend nearly two full weeks in Gongaga, because it’s so easy to fall into its idyllic rhythm and charm. Aerith spends most of her time with his parents, helps his mother with all the household chores and helps his father tend to the tiny garden in the backyard. The garden thrives under Aerith’s touch, and soon enough Gongaga begins to look a little fuller, a little greener, like he remembers at thirteen.

Zack spends as much time as possible by his mother’s side, running errands and fixing up all the broken things at home. Eventually he becomes Gongaga’s personal handyman, repairing doors and windows and broken fences—and even the bridge at the far edge of town that’s had one too many close calls. He doesn’t know what to say to his father, and neither, it seems, does his father know what to say to Zack. So they live around and about each other for days until one night, while Aerith and his mother are busy in the kitchen, his father claps a hand over his shoulder and says, “Walk with me.” So Zack follows his father and they walk in silence until they reach the town cemetery.

“This is where we buried those lost from the mako explosion.” His father lights a stick of incense and sets it in the middle altar, watching the smoke trail upwards toward the stars. “You know, up until that day I was still angry with you. So angry that you ran away without a single word, that you only ever wrote a single letter in all the time you were gone. That you broke your mother’s heart for the chance to be some hero.”

It hurts, but he deserves it.

“But then one day I got sick. Oh, it wasn’t so bad, don’t look at me like that. It wasn’t bad enough to miss a day of work. But your mother insisted, sobbed and pleaded because she said she couldn’t lose both her boys.” He sighs and fiddles with his pipe, but doesn’t light it out of respect for the dead. “She was overreacting, but I stayed, and only later realized that it was seven years to the day that you had disappeared without a word. It was your birthday. So I told your mother to get dressed, packed us a picnic and a tent, and we went all the way into the jungle, where we all used to camp out under the stars.” His eyes soften at the memory, but the corners of his mouth droop. “That was the day of the explosion.”

Zack’s heart plummets.

“If we had been in the village at the time…well, many people didn’t make it.” His father finally glances toward him, eyebrows pinched with regret. “And then I thought, if _you_ had listened to everything I ever told you. If you had made me proud by rising up the ranks in the Mako Reactor like good old dad. If you hadn’t run away all those years ago, a foolhardy thirteen year old kid—you would be dead and buried where we stand. We might all be.”

“Dad…”

“So I told myself, if my boy was still out there—if my boy was still alive, that would be enough. I could forgive him anything.”

Zack cries tears he didn’t know he had left, cries out spent and hollow under the stars, and his dad chuckles and gathers him gruffly into his arms. And instead of reciting Gongagan prayers for the dead, Adrien Fair sings a familiar tune, the lullaby his parents used to sing him to sleep under the stars.

A song of hope.

+++

Zack loves his parents, but he’s also starting to remember why he ran away from home in the first place. After just two weeks they’ve gone from doting parents who are just glad that he’s alive to nagging him about everything from cutting his hair to _grandkids_.

Which, you know, he’s not sure what they expect when there are no separate bedrooms in this house.

Jungle nights in Gongaga are even worse than Kalm.

Aerith muffles her giggles against his shoulder, ever mindful of his parents who are snoring away on the other side of the room. “Well, we bought them a phone so we can keep in touch now.” His heart blooms because yes, _they_ can. “Shall we head home?” Her suggestion is light, but he can tell her heart’s not quite in it. She’s spent so many years trapped in Shinra’s laboratory, trapped in the slums, and while flowers seem to thrive in Kalm, _Aerith_ thrives in the world beyond. He’s led them across two continents guided by his heart, so he’ll gladly pivot and follow hers.

Besides, his home is where she is. “Where do you wanna go?”

“Hmmmm,” she breathes thoughtfully. “Isn’t Cosmo Canyon nearby?”

He agrees against her lips.

“Back in Midgar, there was a bar that made a mean Cosmo Canyon.”

“You miss it?”

“Never went.” She looks up at him with doe eyes. “Didn’t have anyone to go with.”

“You do now,” he says, pulling her close, and means for a lifetime.

+++

They are a sweaty, disgusting mess by the time they climb the last ridge to Cosmo Canyon. And then they have to trudge up another three full flights of stone steps to reach the town entrance, where the Cosmo Candle blazes full and bright in welcome. They book a night at the Shildra Inn, shower, and then promptly take a nap. By the time they wake up, the stars are out and the Starlet Pub is open for business.

Aerith changes into a clean white linen dress, ties her hair into a high ponytail with a yellow-and-white-checkered bow, courtesy of Evelyn Fair. She ties the sky blue ribbon around her left wrist before announcing, “I’m ready!” and the sight makes him want to fall right back into bed with her and tear it off with his teeth. Unfortunately she’s pretty firm about getting that drink. So they order two Cosmo Candles from the bar and Aerith giggles and dangles her legs off the stool. When she notices Zack’s bemused smile, she beams right back at him.

“I can’t help it—it’s my first drink! In a bar! With my boyfriend!”

Her giddy excitement lasts until the first sip. “It’s delicious!” she crows to the hopeful bartender, before dribbling the drink right back into her glass when he turns to help another patron.

“It’s not sweet,” she whines. “I heard it was sweet.”

“Well, this is a Cosmo _Candle_.” It’s dark orange-yellow, bitter, and dry, but it takes the edge off. Zack quickly polishes off his drink, and then downs hers, smacking his lips as she makes a face.

“Gross.”

“Delicious.” He leaves some gil for a tip and takes her by the hand. “C’mon, I know a place you’ll enjoy better.”

The trek up to the Observatory takes a short ten minutes, but it’s five past closing by the time they arrive.

“Nuts,” Zack grouches.

Aerith smiles and pats him on the back. “There, there. We’re staying the night anyway. We can come back tomorrow.”

“Yeah, but you can’t see the stars during the day.” He’s full on pouting, remembering the precious summer vacations his family had scraped and saved to spend in Cosmo Canyon.

“Then I guess we’ll have to stay another night or two.” It’s a fine solution. They decide to head back when the door to the Observatory creaks open, and a voice drifts out in a cavernous echo.

“Ho Ho Hoooo.”

Aerith flinches and hides herself bodily behind Zack as an old man with a flowing white beard and a pair of dark round spectacles appears from the darkness, floating out to them. Literally. He’s floating on a bright green ball.

“I _thought_ I heard voices.”

“Elder Bugenhagen!”

“Elder Whosahuh?”

Bugenhagen’s pale eyebrows lift all the way over his spectacles as he drifts closer, leaning in so that Zack can see through the tinted glass into milky white eyes. “Well I’ll be, little Zack Fair, alive and well, _alive and well_ ,” he murmurs thoughtfully, before turning his sharp gaze toward Aerith, who flinches anew under his stare. “And you, young miss… _Ho Ho Hoooo!_ ”

Her eyes balloon wide but Zack places a reassuring hand on her waist.

“Would you like to come in for some tea?” Bugenhagen leaves the invitation and the door wide open, floating away without another word.

“He’s awesome, you’ll like him,” Zack promises, pulling her in by the hand and closing the door behind them.

They spend the night staring at the stars through the Observatory telescope, Aerith’s breath hitching and sighing in awe as Bugenhagen diagrams the entire night sky. And when the impromptu astronomy lesson ends, they continue waxing philosophical about life and death and the planet itself—well, at least Aerith and Bugenhagen do. Zack falls asleep at around hour three of a lively discussion about “spirit energy,” and has to be wakened and half-carried down the Observatory by Aerith after she’s finished for the night.

Back in their bed, with her forehead nestled in the crook of his shoulder, Aerith admits, “Elder Bugenhagen offered to take me on as a student,” and lets the unsaid question dangle in the stillness of the night.

“So we stay,” Zack replies, and just like that, they stay.

+++

Aerith takes her studies very seriously, and spends most of her days holed up in the Observatory and the Planetarium with Bugenhagen. Zack basically only sees her for about an hour in the morning for breakfast, two hours in the afternoon for lunch, and a few hours at night for dinner before it’s time to sleep and reset the day all over again. And even then Aerith spends most of every night with her nose deep in a new textbook, diligently taking notes and swatting away most of Zack’s attempts at distraction.

“You’re not cheating on me, are you?” he grumbles late one night, after about a full week of this new routine, and she laughs and presses a kiss to his jaw.

“Only with planetary knowledge, baby.”

With so much time on his hands and bills to pay, Zack decides to find some work in Cosmo Canyon. Which is easy enough—new town, same problems. There’s always monsters to slay, broken things in need of repair, and soon enough his reputation even leads to an apprenticeship. The town mechanic, Seizo, offers to teach Zack a few tricks in exchange for some manpower. Seizo has a knack for fixing anything on wheels and a passion for vintage vehicles, and, after Zack seemingly proves himself, allows him into the back room that is strictly off limits otherwise. It’s Seizo’s personal garage, where he keeps all his most prized possessions.

“It’s in bad shape, and will need a lot of work, but the frame is solid. It’s just near impossible to get the parts to fix ’er up,” he says of the burnished but paint-chipped wheelless husk of a motorcycle. Zack agrees, it is probably the second most beautiful thing he’s ever laid his eyes upon, but tries hard not to show it, applies everything he’s learned from Elmyra to haggle down the price, and then offers a little extra for continued storage. So when he’s not busy helping out in the garage, or taking jobs from the townsfolk, Zack sets about foraging and trading and defeating monsters for parts.

With quite a bit of help from Seizo, he manages to get the motorcycle in working order and the first thing he does is take Aerith on a brisk joy ride around the cliffs. There is nothing quite like the feel of Aerith’s arms wrapped tightly around his waist, body flush against his, as they speed through the night, the wind warm on their faces and her shrieks of utter delight echoing off the canyons walls.

The motorcycle makes the time without Aerith pass quicker, too. Sometimes he visits his parents, brings them produce from the Canyon and makes sure nothing in the town stays broken on his watch. He always returns with a batch of his mother’s freshly baked dew cakes, to Aerith’s _and_ Bugenhagen’s delight. Sometimes he goes exploring, and one day stumbles upon a whole mine of glistening silver. A serene kind of power radiates from the mine, and Zack, after giving thanks to the planet, gathers up a satchel full of pieces that have already broken off onto the floor. Maybe, instead of just fixing things, he’ll try to make something new again.

He borrows some tools from the Tiger Lily Arms shop and decides to craft some bangles using Aerith’s jewelry for inspiration. He was right about the power. Zack notices firsthand that he encounters less monsters when wearing one. He posts a few to Elmyra, drops some off at Gongaga, and otherwise sells out of them pretty quickly, has to turn down requests for more because he’s clean out of materials and doesn’t think the elders would appreciate him mining through the sacred silver of the Canyon.

But, he does have just enough silver to whittle down into two small bands. One night he’s sitting at the bar of the Starlet Pub, trying to engrave intricate patterns onto the rings while waiting for Aerith.

“Hey, hot stuff, buy ya a drink?” someone asks, coming right up into his personal space, voice breathy and sugary sweet. Zack glances up and is about to say thanks but no thanks, apologize because he’s very much taken, when the brunette in front of him grins and pokes her tongue out the corner of her mouth. “Psych! Anyone who’s seen you around town with that green-eyed chick knows you’re very much taken. You follow her around like a lovesick puppy.”

He can’t argue with facts, but he can size her up. She’s got hazel eyes and deep brown hair knotted into a ponytail at the top of her head. At first glance she’s wearing a simple dark blue tunic, green cargo pants, and fingerless brown leather gloves. On second glance he can see the faint pattern of chainmail beneath her shirt, the steel tips of her boots scuffed with dried blood, and the way the waistband of her shorts sags just a bit, as if weighed down by some kind of weapon.

“So whatcha really want?” Zack leans back and crosses his arms over his chest. His sword is upstairs, though he’s pretty sure he wouldn’t need it to take her out. Still, though her demeanor is confident and challenging, it’s not suspect. Yet.

“Silver bracelets all over town—that’s your handiwork, right?”

“Sure is.”

“Ten-thousand gil for twenty.” She matches his stance and leans against the counter, grin sharp and toothy, as if she absolutely knows Zack is counting zeros in his head. Ten-thousand would go a long way toward rebuilding Gongaga. And maybe toward a real house in Kalm, too.

But. “I don’t have enough silver for that,” he says cautiously. “And what do you need with twenty of those?”

“You don’t worry your pretty little face about that.” Her ponytail bobs behind her as she boops him on the nose. “We’ll procure the silver.”

Aha. “We?”

She rolls her eyes and seats herself onto the stool beside him, raises her hands in mock surrender. “All right, ya got me.”

“Avalanche.” He’s read how the original founder of the group came from Cosmo Canyon, knows from odd jobs here and there that Elders Bughe and Hargo are still in close contact with the group.

She nods, inspecting her nails boredly. “But, see, I’ve got you pegged, too, SOLDIER boy.” Her eyes flicker toward his and then the rings in his hand. He hastily sweeps them into his pocket. “ _Former_ SOLDIER turned lovesick puppy, anyway, so I know you’re not still with ’em. We got a deal?”

He rubs his chin thoughtfully. “It’ll take a few days.”

“Make it sooner and I’ll throw in an extra five thousand.”

“You got it—er?”

“Jessie,” she says, catching his hand and shaking it firmly without asking for his. “Oh, and make one of those child-sized, wouldja?” She cuffs him under the chin and ducks out of the bar just as Aerith arrives, textbooks in hand, eyebrows raised mildly.

“You’re not cheating on me, are you?” she teases, checking her hip against his.

“Only with money, baby.”

+++

After nearly a month into their stay at Cosmo Canyon, Aerith breaks routine. He’s showering off the remains of a particularly messy encounter with a group of Skeeskees when the door to their room opens and shuts softly. His ears perk and his eyebrows raise—it’s too early for lunch. He quickly rinses off, throws on some clothes, wraps a towel around his neck, and tiptoes into the room just as Aerith sits down on the bed. And then he pounces, covers her eyes with his hands and blows into her ear. “Playing hooky?”

When she doesn’t swat his hands away, he frowns and lowers them on his own, scoots over on the bed so he’s seated next to her and bumps his shoulder against hers. “What’s wrong?”

“Elder Bugenhagen told me he doesn’t have anything left to teach me.”

“Oh.” There’s disappointment there, for sure. “But what else?”

She inhales slowly and then falls backward onto the bed. “He knows I’m the last Cetra. He’s known it since the first night.”

“Hey, I don’t think there’s anything to worry about here. Not sure how he figured it out, but there’s no way Elder Bugenhagen would rat you out to Shinra. You know he wouldn’t.” He reaches for her hand but she pulls away, rolls to face the bedroom wall and keeps her back to him.

“No, I’m not worried about that at all.” Somehow the distance between them feels endless. “Do you know where the Knowlespole is?”

+++

It’s a long journey north, but they finally make it to Icicle Inn after a few full days of travel. Aerith dismounts the motorcycle and leaves her helmet on the seat, pulls down the hood of her lime green jacket and exhales frostily. She barely said a word for the entire trip, barely ate a thing, and barely touched him at all except at night when she clutched at his chest so desperately as if afraid he’d disappear.

“We should find an inn,” Zack tries, though he doesn’t expect more than a vague one word answer. He pops his helmet off, shakes his hair loose—and realizes a beat too late that Aerith has already wandered off on her own. He tsks and tosses his helmet aside, scrambling and calling after her.

She doesn’t glance back once, clomps through freshly fallen snow down a winding path surrounded by snow-covered trees. At the end of the path is an obscured cottage. She’s standing in front of the door, hand hovering over the handle, when he finally catches up to her.

“Aerith?” He reaches for her hand but she pushes forward.

The door shuts behind them as she shakes snow from her boots and tries the lights. They flicker once, twice, before dying completely. Waning daylight filters through a thin crack in the roof, illuminating the room just enough to see that it must have been abandoned for years, and ransacked thoroughly. Zack has a bad feeling about this, and is about to suggest leaving immediately to find that inn when a large screen on the opposite wall judders to life. There’s static, and then a man’s face blurs and refocuses on screen. _“Camera’s ready!”_ When he walks back, Zack realizes that he’s in this room, this house, and he’s not alone. He sits across from a beautiful woman with chestnut brown hair and soft green eyes, but Zack’s attention shifts to Aerith, who stands unblinkingly in front of the screen, the light casting an eerie glow over her face. _“Then, Ifalna, please tell us about the Cetra…”_

Two things happen at once. Aerith’s knees buckle just before the entire cabin shakes violently. Zack slides across the room toward her, barely managing to throw his body over hers as a bookcase scrapes out of place to crash around them. Distantly he hears the shattering of glass over the roar that fills his eardrums.

And then, just as swiftly as it started, it stops.

_“Knowlespole refers to this area. The Cetra then began a Planet-reading.”_

Zack focuses all his energy into his back and wrenches the bookcase off with a strained grunt. It collapses behind him, and he takes a moment to catch his breath and inspect Aerith’s face. There’s not a scratch on her. He rolls off her body and onto his back, sagging in relief. “What the heck was that?”

Silence.

“Aerith?”

More silence.

His relief slowly melts to panic when he realizes she hasn’t opened her eyes. “Aerith? Hey, _Aerith!_ ”

_“It said something fell from the sky, making a large wound.”_

“Please, please, please _please_ ,” Zack begs, lifting her eyelids to check her irises, patting her softly on the cheek before taking up her hand and frantically yanking the blue ribbon off her wrist as he searches for a pulse. It beats a steady thrum against his fingertips and he exhales, but doesn’t relax.

_“Do the Ancients, rather, the Cetra, have special powers to heal the Planet?”_

He upends their packs looking for a potion and thanks his lucky stars when he finds an elixir. He props her into a sitting position on his lap, parts her lips with his thumb and dribbles the liquid into her mouth, massages her throat to get her to swallow.

But she still doesn’t wake up.

_“That’s when the one who injured the Planet…or the ‘crisis from the sky,’ as we call him, came.”_

“Aerith, hey, open your eyes for me…okay? _Please_.”

_“Then, just as he had at the Knowlespole. He approached other Cetra clans…infecting them with…the virus…”_

He smashes the empty elixir bottle across the room. “FUCK!”

_“You don't look well… Let’s call it a day.”_

The screen fritzes off, leaving them in darkness.

“Aerith, please wake up,” Zack whispers hoarsely, shifting her body closer to his and willing away the wetness pooling in his eyes. Her arms drop against the floor, but her chest rises and falls against his. With a shuddering breath, he wipes at his eyes and limps his way out of the cottage door.

The air outside burns at his lungs, and when Zack looks into the sky he sees an inferno.

_The crisis from the sky…_

+++

The doctors in Icicle Inn can find nothing wrong with Aerith. Her vitals are fine, her pulse is strong, and she’s still alive.

_But she won’t open her eyes._

She seems to be in a deep sleep.

_Well, then when will she wake up?_

They don’t seem to have an answer for that, instead try to take a look at his swelling ankle, or prod at the small of his back which gives way to a hiss as electric pain shoots up his spine, tell him he won’t be able to take care of anyone if he doesn’t take care of himself first.

He bares his teeth and ignores them all, scoops her gently into his arms and trudges back toward the abandoned cottage and waits. And, when Aerith doesn’t wake for an entire day, Zack makes the call.

The one that just might end his life.

He dials Elmyra.

She answers cheerfully, if a little warily, asks him where they are, if they’re eating well—if they can also see the evil-looking menace in the sky. He answers her questions dutifully, but she must hear something in it as her voice goes very soft and very precise. “Zack, are you okay?”

He chokes, tears spilling down his face because Aerith is not okay which means he sure as hell isn’t. He tells her how Aerith fainted just before an earthquake hit and the skies turned to fire and he doesn’t know what to do because the doctors tell him she’s sleeping only _she won’t wake up._

Elmyra is silent for far too long and he thinks, oh god, he’s failed her just like he’s failed Aerith, he’s failed them all, and then she asks, finally, “Do you have ingredients for stew?”

“Wuh?”

“She’ll be hungry when she wakes,” Elmyra says patiently, and begins listing ingredients.

“What do you—she _won’t_ wake up! That’s the point!” He is so angry and confused and Elmyra sighs and tells him to take a deep, anchoring breath.

He listens.

“This isn’t the first time this has happened, my dear.”

“What?!”

“When Aerith was eight—no, maybe nine—she did exactly what you just described. She fainted without warning and wouldn’t wake up. Doctors that I reached out to from every corner of the slums couldn’t find a single thing wrong with her. They all said she was just sleeping—but how could she sleep so deeply when I was sitting by her bed, sobbing uncontrollably every night? And then, after three days, she opened her eyes. They looked different, a little older, a lot sadder.”

“What happened?”

“She never said. She acted like nothing was wrong and told me she was starving.” Elmyra chuckles softly, and when she speaks again her voice is warm and thick with emotion. “Zack, you know who Aerith is, and to love her means that sometimes you won’t get all your questions answered, and you might never completely understand her—but you know your life will always be so much fuller with her in it. I believe she will be fine. And you will be fine. And _when_ she wakes up, she’ll be hungry. So, are you ready to write down my recipe now?”

+++

Zack doesn’t sleep for three days straight, eats barely enough to sustain himself, and otherwise keeps constant vigil by her side. So when Aerith’s eyes finally flutter open as dawn breaks, he’s already taking both her hands in his and pressing kisses to each of her knuckles as she blinks owlishly at him.

“Zack—” Her stomach grumbles and she giggles. “I’m _starving_ …hey, is that my mom’s stew?”

“Not quite, but close enough.” His voice cracks and his eyes threaten to spill over again. She smiles sadly and wipes at them, rests her hand against his cheek, thumbing his scars. “I’ll explain later.”

After she finishes a whole bowl and reaches for seconds, Zack prompts, impatiently, “What happened when you were eight?”

“Ah…” She blinks, and then nods in understanding. “I was—okay… The Leaf House wasn’t built until I was into my teens, but there were some kids my age in Sector Five. Our parents worked during the day, for those of us who were so lucky to have them, so we were left to amuse ourselves. We were poor, and the only game we knew was hide and seek, so we’d meet at the church to play…

“Whenever I was it, it was so easy to find them. The planet was always talking to me, guiding me, and I didn’t realize at the time that was… Well, anyway, one day we were playing and I was hiding in the backroom of the church when I overheard the kids saying they couldn’t find me. I was so pleased with my hiding spot! And then they said…to leave it. To leave me. I cheated at hide and seek, anyway. I was always muttering to myself, anyway. I was a freak and a weirdo, anyway. They didn’t want to play with me anymore. They didn’t _want_ to find me. And just like that, I realized I was alone again.”

He takes her hand in his and gives it a grounding squeeze. She returns a watery smile.

“I went home and bawled my eyes out. I didn’t _want_ to be weird. I didn’t want to be left behind. So I decided to ignore the planet. Every time it whispered to me, every time it tried to reach me, I ignored it, shut it out. I put everything I had into ignoring it. But…the planet won’t be ignored by its chosen people.”

_A Planet-reading…_

“I fell unconscious and it showed me everything I had missed. Every warning I didn’t heed. Every soul that had burned up, unable to return to the planet. What would happen if I ignored my destiny, my birthright.”

There’s no hiding it now. “So, what did you see this time?”

“Ultimate destruction…Meteor.” She shudders, naming the blight in the sky once and for all.

“What else aren’t you telling me?”

She bites her lip and it’s only then that her eyes begin to shimmer with tears. “I saw him—your friend. Cloud. He’s been trying to protect the planet— _save_ the planet. Him and his friends and I—I ignored it. I tried so hard to ignore it at every turn because I thought—I knew…I just wanted…”

Zack tugs her around the table and into his lap, throws his arms around her as she sobs against him. Cries until she’s spent and hollow before she admits, finally, heartbreakingly. “I just wanted to spend more time with you.”

Twenty three little wishes put together into one.

“Me too,” Zack whispers, crushing her to his chest. “Me too.”

She wraps her arms around his neck and clings to him like a lifeline.

+++

Zack Fair dreams. He dreams of eyes like wine, eyes like deep night, eyes of burning mako. He dreams that the skies are on fire, of a town ablaze, the planet burning to ash. He dreams he’s standing on a precipice as the world spins round above, leaving him behind. He dreams of lullabies under a starry sky, the verdant green of twisting jungle vines, the sweet scent of honeyed dew. He dreams of home. Of eyes like Gongagan fields in the summer, of healing winds warm to the touch, of snowing stars. Of Aerith dressed in pink, turning away from him, fading further and further to where he can’t follow.

Zack Fair wakes with a start. Moonlight filters in through run-down shades by the window, and it takes some time for his eyes to adjust. He’s slept the whole day away. The bed groans beneath his weight as he shifts into a sitting position to look about through squinted eyes. The cottage has been tidied up and his bag is packed neatly at the foot of the bed, alone.

He’s alone.

_Fuck._ “Aerith? Aerith?!” He stands and pain shoots up from his ankle to his spine and he drops to his knees and heaves, trembling and sweating all over. No, no, nonononono _no, please_ …

The door opens somewhere above, followed by a gasp and footfalls racing down the stairs. “Zack?”

She’s by his side in an instant, gently easing him back onto the bed. He catches her by the arm, holds her by the wrist until he can find the courage to look her in the face. To make sure she’s real. “I…I thought you left.”

“Where would I go without you?” she murmurs, though her eyes are soft and apologetic. “I woke first and thought I would clean up a bit, and then I saw your ankle and knew I needed to find a pharmacy before it got too late.” She pulls a pack of gauze from her bag and rests his ankle onto a pillow, rolls up his pants leg and wraps his ankle up tight. Once that’s done, she closes her eyes and places her hands on his ankle and a warm, rushing wind sweeps through his entire body, making him feel at ease.

“Better?”

He nods and pulls her back into bed with him. “Better.”

“Good, because we can’t stay long,” she says, though her body molds against his with practiced familiarity. She brings a hand to his face, sky-blue ribbon tickling his cheek, and meets his eyes with blazing determination. “You ready to be a hero again?”

+++

Aerith kneels in the middle of a marble altar, surrounded by a serene pool in the Forgotten City, and prays. They’ve been here for two days, and every day Aerith comes here to pray while Zack keeps watch. And every night she joins him in the bed of an abandoned seashell cottage and complains.

“The planet _told_ me to come here, put me in a three-day coma so I would finally listen and find my way here, and yet won’t tell me how to _do_ anything. How can the planet’s voice be so far removed from _the city of the freaking Cetra_?”

She rolls the pearlescent materia, Ifalna’s materia, in her hands, before chucking it across the room in anger. “It’s useless,” she hisses venomously. “She never taught me anything about it.” Thick hot tears pour from her eyes and Zack allows her to bury her face in his chest, reminds himself to pick up the materia tomorrow from where it’s rolled under the desk as he rubs soothing circles over her back.

She hiccups. “It feels like it’s blocked. Like something is keeping the planet from talking to me—maybe, maybe if I hadn’t ignored it…maybe if I had listened sooner.”

“Hey.” Zack leans back and cups her face in his hands. For all she’s beating herself up over not doing a teeny, tiny thing like, oh, saving the whole goddamn planet, it’s not like he’s been remotely of any use, either. “You can’t beat yourself up over what ifs, Aerith. Nothing good comes from thinking like that. Like, what if I never made it back to you. Or what if you never woke up again.”

She sighs as he presses a kiss to the top of her head. “We’ll try again tomorrow.”

Aerith pushes him bodily away and stares at him with wide, unblinking eyes, and it’s as if he can see the gears clicking into place in her head. Only he has no idea what she’s thinking.

“Aerith?”

“We’ll try again…” she repeats thoughtfully.

“Yeah?”

“A planet-reading!” She’s already up and on her knees, frantically searching the floors for the lost materia.

“What about it?”

“A true planet-reading was one held by _all_ the Cetra. Don’t you see?”

“Um?”

“Got it!” Aerith shouts in triumph, before there’s a painful crunching sound and he knows she’s bonked her head against the underside of the desk.

“You okay?”

She turns to him and nods, eyes red-rimmed but smile exuberant as she takes him by the hand. “I need _you_.”

He blinks but lets himself be pulled along with her. “But I’m not a Cetra?”

“And I’m not alone!” Her laughter echoes around them as she leads him through the crumbling marble pathways on bare feet all the way back to the central altar. A sliver of moonlight lights their way through a single pinprick in the caverns above, bounces off the waves reverberating from their footfalls. She kneels and has him kneel with her, in front of her, presses Ifalna’s materia into his hands and envelopes them with her own. She doesn’t say another word, but kisses him quickly, eyes shining, before closing them and lowering her head. She prays. And breathes. And even though Zack has no idea what’s going on, he follows.

And prays.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

And breathes.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Silence.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Nothing.

“ _Shit._ ” Her voice wavers, defeated, broken. “I really thought that was it.”

Zack can’t fix this. He understands that the fate of the world might unjustly rest on Aerith’s shoulders right now, even if he hates it, even if he wishes he could do anything about it—and all because her mother happened to fall in love in a world filled with hate. He knows that she belongs to the planet, that this is her birthright, her _destiny_ , that he means so little in the grand scheme of this life. He knows that Meteor is hurtling toward them, that Cloud and his friends might be somewhere doing their best, that this might well and truly be the end. This is the last moment he might have with her. The materia drops from his hands as he gathers her trembling body into his arms and promises to never, ever let go, Cetra, Gaia, Meteor be damned.

It rolls down the altar, bounces down the stairs until it sinks fully, finally, into the depths below.

“Tell me this isn’t the end,” Aerith pleads softly.

He doesn’t have the heart to lie. So instead he decides to sing.

A once forgotten lullaby; a song of hope.

He sings until his voice runs rough and ragged, and his forehead droops against hers, and he can’t feel his arms. But still, he doesn’t let her go. He won’t.

“We’ll try again tomorrow.” He remembers a second too late that the White Materia has plummeted into the waters. If this is the end, so be it. “But just in case, Aerith, I lo—”

“Do you hear that?” Aerith blurts out, standing suddenly and glancing all around them.

“Hear what?”

“Shhh. Listen.”

So he listens. And then he hears it. Faint at first, but growing louder by the second, whispers whipping all around them, reverberating in his ears, echoing throughout the Forgotten City in raucous harmony.

…Singing?

And then, suddenly, the waters are rising all around them in great swirling, glowing waves. It spirals and churns until there is no water left in the underground city, siphoning out the tiny pinprick into the sky, leaving nothing but warmth and snowing stars.

“Wh-what was that?”

“The lifestream!” Aerith chokes on her tears before rearing back and tackling him straight to the floor.

Seven days after Meteor is summoned, the planet is saved.

+++

He’s reading while eating breakfast and drinking tea at their kitchen table. Aerith, hair piled into a towel knotted on top of her head, fresh from her morning shower, pads over in one of his t-shirts and presses a kiss to his cheek. “Where are you up to now?”

He pulls her into his lap and wraps his arms around her waist, burying his nose into the nape of her neck. “Your flower wagon just broke.”

“Hm, then I guess you have a free day today.” He’s too predictable. When they finally returned from their Gaia-spanning adventure back to Kalm, a tearful Elmyra was waiting for them. Along with a parcel of eighty-eight letters, pristinely packed and saved. Since then, Zack has opened up a single letter each morning to read, despite Aerith’s insistence that there was no dwelling on the past. The first few letters were _adorable_ , and Zack teased Aerith mercilessly with the contents written by her teenage self. It was nice to know with certainty that once upon a time she was just as smitten as he was. As they both maybe still are. And then weeks passed, a year passed, and the letters slowly began to unravel into heartbreak. Now he spends every morning holding her tighter, smothering her deeper, and asking for a new tiny wish, a new promise to fulfill, to make up for all the time lost. “What do you wanna do?”

“What do _you_ wanna do?” The flower wagon might already be rebuilt, but he’ll gladly spend the rest of his life making her new promises.

Aerith wriggles in his lap and winds her arms languorously around his neck, pressing her nose gently against his, and he knows it’s going to be a big one.

“I want to help.” He smushes his nose further against hers. “Edge.”

Right. Even though the world was saved from Meteor, the fallout from the explosion hit too close to Midgar and actually, finally, destroyed that giant steel pizza in the sky once and for all. Luckily, most of the city had already evacuated under the combined efforts of Avalanche sympathizer Mayor Domino and former Shinra head of Urban Development Reeve Tuesti. And the Turks, probably, though there’s no picture evidence this time. And once the plate fell, so did Shinra’s regime, and citizen efforts to rebuild quickly followed.

“You miss home, huh?”

She leans back and he sees his face reflected in her eyes. “Midgar hasn’t been home for a long time.”

“Really took to Kalm, huh?” He laughs as she puffs her cheeks at him. “Oh, come on, don’t be like that. We’ll go. We’ll help.” He finds her hand and presses his lips to each knuckle, lingers against the winking silver band on her ring finger. “Besides, I heard there’s a new bar in Edge that makes a mean Cosmo Canyon.”

_By the way…_

“What’s this?”

“My ninetieth letter. Thought you’d miss ’em now that you’ve finished them all.” Aerith grins as she offers him a delicate cream envelope with both hands. “It was Tifa’s idea.”

“It sure was trouble letting you two meet.” He laughs but takes it from her, runs his hands over the glossy, looping letters spelling his name in her handwriting.

“You gonna open it?”

He raises an eyebrow. “You gonna stay?”

She’s never once wanted to be around when he’s read her letters, at first it was too embarrassing, too personal, and then too depressing. But today she sits across from him at the table, hands tucked under her chin, expectant.

He smiles and tears into the envelope. A pressed and dried yellow flower falls out first, and he can tell from the twisted up stem that it must have been the one he picked for her all those months ago. The letter reads:

_Dear Zack,_

_Thanks for coming home._

_By the way…love ya!_

_-Aerith_

**Author's Note:**

> ~~BRING ZACK FAIR'S ASS BACK HOME IN 2030, SQUARE-ENIX!~~
> 
> Count me among the hordes of Remake trash since release, because I'm still obsessed. And if you've made it here, you clearly know which side of the ending debate I fall on. So even though I fully expect to be completely _destroyed_ by whatever comes next (unless they just wanted an excuse to remaster Crisis Core in which case JUST TAKE MY MONEY, SE), I at least wanted to envision a happy ending for Zack and Aerith before then. Because damn, do these kids deserve it.
> 
> (OK actually this fic was just gonna follow them to Kalm, where they would live in domestic bliss until Meteor was called and then it would end ambiguously because although I do think most of the OG game could happen without Aerith...the planet is def doomed without her. But then Zack was like, hey I'm one of two(???) canonically non-orphans in this entire game and my parents deserve closure. And then Aerith threatened me with a chair if I didn't make the ending unambiguously happy. And 20K words later here we are!)
> 
> This fic would not exist without the patient enabling/encouragement/beta of [dreamfighter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamfighter/pseuds/dreamfighter), who is ~~also Remake trash~~ my ride or die sis for life. Thanks for letting me trip you further into this ship (and also you're welcome). <3
> 
> And thank YOU so much for reading, and doubly so if you've indulged this A/N. If you've enjoyed this fic even a little, it'll make literal weeks of sleepless nights it spent haunting me worth it. <3
> 
> Anyway, this A/N is too long, but in addition to _Home_ by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, have some other songs that remind me of Zack/Aerith ~~that I contemplated plagiarizing lyrics from for a fic title~~ :
> 
> -Ass Back Home by Gym Class Heroes  
> -Stereo Hearts by Gym Class Heroes  
> -Daylight by Matt & Kim  
> -It's Alright by Matt & Kim  
> -Hollow by Yosh (is a Zerith song fight me)


End file.
